2005-08-31 Fantastic

As always, Eva Ibbotson has come up with a complete winner, with captivating characters, loathsome villains and a real facility to blend the realistic and plausible with complete fantasy. Her beautifully matter-of-fact tone and lively dialogue perfectly conveys the reader to her world, a world where it is never disguised that there is wickedness but where it is also suggested that intelligence, determination and decency will overcome evil.